According to the Declaration of Helsinki and Finnish legislation research ethics in human studies requires special attention. However, how to carry out practical procedures in the ethically best way is not self-evident and requires further studies. KuBiCo-birth cohort project provides an unique opportunity to pursue the following important points: 1) recruitment and informed consent in a birth cohort, 2) evaluation by the recruited families of the usefulness and potential risks to their families, 3) handling and long term storage of samples and information for future use, 4) societal benefits of the type of information collected in KuBiCo and 5) what affects the decisions by the people approached for recruitment. One of the main aims is to develop reliable tools to evaluate ethical issues in birth cohort studies.